Louis Bonaparte

• 1. Introduction

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  Louis Bonaparte told the people of Holland that he was their Konijn van 'Olland - their Rabbit of 'Olland - rather than their King. The mispronunciation was accidental, the result of a French prince struggling with an unfamiliar tongue. But it captures something true about the man: a ruler caught between two worlds, loyal to neither by the end. Born Luigi Buonaparte on the 2nd of September 1778 in Ajaccio, Corsica, Louis was the fifth surviving child of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino. He grew up in a family whose fortunes would transform Europe - and whose demands would eventually consume him. How does a man become king of a country he never chose, and then choose that country over his own brother? That is the question Louis Bonaparte's life keeps asking.

• 2. Corsican Beginnings

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  Corsica had been conquered by France less than a decade before Louis was born, which meant the Bonaparte children were, in a meaningful sense, subjects of a foreign power from birth. Louis grew up as the younger brother of Joseph, Napoleon, Lucien, and Elisa, and older than Pauline, Caroline, and Jereme. His godparents included the island's governor, Mr de Marbeuf, and the wife of the intendant, Bertrand de Boucheporn - connections that reflected the family's careful cultivation of useful relationships.

  Louis followed his older brothers into the French Army, where Napoleon's rising star pulled him upward rapidly. He served with Napoleon in the French campaign in Egypt and Syria, was promoted to Lieutenant in the 4th Artillery Regiment, and then made Aide-de-Camp on Napoleon's staff. During the Italian Campaign, Napoleon recommended Louis to Carnot directly, which earned Louis a captaincy. By the age of 25, Louis held the rank of General - a pace he himself found uncomfortable. He reportedly felt he had risen too high in too short a time, an unease that would shadow his later exercise of power.

  Back in France, Louis was drawn into Napoleon's plot to overthrow the Directory. His military career had been shaped almost entirely by his brother's will. His personal life would be no different. Napoleon, now First Consul, arranged a marriage between Louis and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Empress Josephine - and therefore Napoleon's stepdaughter. Hortense opposed the match at first, and was persuaded by her mother to accept it for the family's sake. The wedding took place on the 4th of January 1802.

• 3. A King Against His Brother

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  On the 5th of June 1806, Napoleon dissolved the Batavian Commonwealth and replaced it with the Kingdom of Holland, placing Louis on the throne. The intent was straightforward: Louis would function as little more than a French prefect, extending Napoleon's reach into the north. Louis had other ideas.

  He set about learning Dutch, calling himself Lodewijk I and declaring himself Dutch rather than French. He forced his court and ministers, most of them installed by Napoleon, to speak only Dutch and to renounce their French citizenships. When he made this demand, his wife Hortense was in France and refused outright. Their marriage had never been warm; Louis and Hortense had never gotten along, and her refusal only deepened the distance between them. She came to Holland only reluctantly and made a deliberate effort to avoid him.

  Louis changed his capital city more than a dozen times during his reign, moving between Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, and other locations. On one visit to the home of a wealthy Dutch merchant, he admired the property so much that he had the owner evicted and moved in himself - then departed again after seven weeks. The disruption was significant enough that the European diplomatic corps formally petitioned him to stay in one place so they could track his movements.

  Two disasters tested his rule and ultimately defined his reputation. In 1807, a cargo ship loaded with gunpowder exploded in the heart of Leiden. In 1809, a major flood struck Holland. In both cases, Louis personally led relief efforts on the ground. Those responses earned him the name Louis the Good. Napoleon, hearing of the praise, was reportedly unimpressed. He told his brother that when people call a king good, it means he has failed in his rule.

• 4. The Breaking Point

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  Two demands from Napoleon brought Louis's reign to its end. The first was economic: Napoleon wanted to reduce the value of French loans from Dutch investors by two-thirds, a measure that would have dealt a severe blow to the Netherlands. Louis resisted. The second demand was military. As Napoleon prepared his invasion of Russia, he required troops from across his empire, including Holland. Louis refused point-blank.

  Napoleon accused his brother of placing Dutch interests above French ones and withdrew most of the French forces from Holland, leaving only around 9,000 garrison soldiers. The vulnerability became immediately apparent when Britain landed an army of 40,000 in 1809, attempting to capture Antwerp and Flushing. Louis could not defend his realm with so few troops. France sent 80,000 militiamen, commanded by the 1st Prince Bernadotte - the future King Karl XIV Johan of Sweden - and repelled the invasion. Napoleon then used Louis's inability to protect Holland as the stated reason to call for his abdication.

  Louis refused that demand as well, declaring the occupation of his kingdom by a French army unlawful. On the 1st of July 1810, he abdicated in favour of his second son, Napoleon Louis Bonaparte, and fled from Haarlem on the night of the 2nd and the 3rd of July. Marshal Nicolas Oudinot invaded Holland on the 4th of July. By the Decree of Rambouillet on the 9th of July, Napoleon incorporated Holland directly into France. Napoleon Louis Bonaparte had been king for eight days.

• 5. Exile and Afterlife

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  Louis Bonaparte spent the rest of his life outside France, taking the title of Count of Saint-Leu, a reference to his property at Saint-Leu-la-Foret near Paris. The Austrian Emperor Francis I offered him asylum, and between 1811 and 1813 he lived in Graz, writing poetry and literary works.

  He wrote to Napoleon after the Russian campaign's collapse, asking that the Dutch throne be restored to him. Napoleon refused. Louis repeatedly requested permission to visit the Netherlands; King William I denied him each time. It was King William II who finally allowed a visit in 1840. Louis traveled under a false name, but some people recognized him. A crowd gathered beneath the window of his hotel room and cheered. He was said to have been moved deeply by the demonstration.

  When his eldest brother Joseph died in 1844, Bonapartist loyalists looked to Louis as the rightful Emperor of the French. Louis himself took little action to press the claim. His son, the future Napoleon III, was more aggressive: at that moment he was imprisoned in France for attempting a coup against King Louis Philippe I. Louis died from a stroke on the 25th of July 1846 in Livorno. His remains were buried at Saint-Leu-la-Foret in Ile-de-France - the same place where his son Napoleon Charles Bonaparte, who had died at four and a half years old in 1807, was also laid to rest. The dynasty that had ejected Louis from Holland would nonetheless produce the next French emperor: his youngest son Charles Louis-Napoleon became Napoleon III in 1852.